Grey to White
by RFife
Summary: Perhaps Gandalf was not entirely truthful with Aragorn and the others about what happened when he fell into darkness in Moria. Perhaps the truth is something quite different altogether.


Gandalf exhaled, and the sound was consumed by the darkness. Everywhere he looked, everywhere he reached out to with his mind, there was only the darkness. He opened his eyes wide, but it made no difference. His pupils widened, trying desperately to find some small sliver of light, but there was none in the stagnant air of the deepest recesses of Moria, thick with some unknown musk. The stench was not orc, nor even the evil of Durin's Bane. It felt older and deeper, as if the darkness, so thick that Gandalf doubted even light would push it back, had moved beyond just the realm of sight.

He pushed himself to his knees, fighting against his soggy robes, and slowly felt around him with battered and weary hands. Cold, damp stone thick with the spongy bristles of lichen stuck to the tips of his fingers, and from the sting that bit at flesh and wormed its way down to his bone, he knew that his hands were covered in opens cuts. They would need treated; even one of the Istari had to take care of his body. But when he would be able to do that, he did not know.

His search found nothing, and he pulled himself up, carefully probing above himself, looking about, for all the good it did him. The sensation of motion nauseated him when paired with the unchanging velvet of his surroundings. The sound of dripping water echoed off the chamber walls, but it reverberated so much that he could not tell where it was even coming from, although the echo gave him some sense of the size of the cavern, and the sense that there was a great space above him.

Memory flooded back. He was on the bridge of Khazad-dûm, and the beast of fire and shadow was before him: the power against which he had not been tested. He had suspected going into Moria that the creature that had once been his brother was there, but he had hoped against all to not have to face it. He had given up so much when he came to Middle Earth, and the Balrog had not.

But victory had been his. He had tricked the beast out onto the bridge and sent it plummeting down a chasm too narrow for its wings to do any good. He and the fellowship had been safe.

But the Balrog would not be so quickly denied its prey. Searing, burning pain flashed anew, and Gandalf felt down along his knees to where the fiery whip had caught him and seared clean through his robes and flesh alike. The skin was tender and cracked, and a slick, thin fluid was slowly oozing out of the burned lacerations.

He stood back up, careful not press his injured knees too quickly, and tried to collect his racing wits. He had fallen into the darkness with the Balrog, and that was the last thing he remembered before coming to in this pit.

But where was the creature?

More importantly, where were his staff and sword?

He held his hands out before him and took a tentatively step forward, feeling along the ground with the toe of his boot for both purchase and his missing weapons while his hands grasped futilely in the air for any possible wall that might be invisible in the dark.

Perhaps he could risk creating a small light, just to gain his bearings. The thought of even some small bit of Eru's blessing in this forsaken place was tempting, but he finally cast the idea away. For as much as the inky darkness bore down on him both spiritually and physically, creating a light with signal his location to the Balrog faster than even shouting out. No doubt the creature lived. If Gandalf had manage to survive the fall, the Balrog, much closer to its true Maia form than the old wizard, would have likely thought nothing of it.

His boot stepped into water, and the fetid smell of stagnation and decay rushed up to meet him, like an open tomb or fresh corpse. He stopped and brought one sleeve up to his nose, and the smell only grew stronger. So that was how he had survived, was it? An underground lake. It was too much to hope the water had slain the beast. It might be a spirit of fire, but no simple pond would slay one such as it. Perhaps it was weakened, though, and had slunk off, deciding its wizard prey was not worth the effort. It was a small hope and comfort in the dark.

He backed away from the lake and continued to feel along the shoreline, constantly fighting off the urge to summon light, at least for the time being. He could not sense the Balrog, but that did not mean it was not here, waiting and somehow masking itself from him. If it even had to mask itself. He felt weaker than he had even after the days of exposure atop Orthanc, where Saruman had tortured him in dark and twisted ways, finding ways to assault both mind and body in a single stroke and bending the knowledge he had learned under the smith Aulë to create devices of power and steel that burrowed into flesh and flayed the soul with fire and needles.

He pushed the memory down with a shudder. He had not told even Elrond the true extend of what had happened to him at Isengard, of what levels of depravity Saruman had learned from his association with the Enemy, and even more likely, man. If anything would have convinced the old elf lord to not aid in this quest, it would have been that.

Still, Gandalf was weak, and he could not shut that away. When the Balrog had broken his shutting spell and word of command, it had drained him significantly, and for all he could tell, it had not even fazed the beast. No, there was no defeating this ancient twisted evil of Morgoth. There was only one option, and that was to flee.

His foot brushed against something hard, and the distinctive sound of metal rasping against stone echoed through the vast chamber. Gandalf dared hope, and he reached down ever so slowly until his finger found the sharpened edge of Glamdring. Even such a casual contact with the blade bit deep, and the old wizard hissed at the pain, but it could not take away the joy at finding the old sword that had been his companion for so many years.

Ever so carefully, he found the flat of the blade and followed it to the hilt. He picked up the familiar heft and winced against the sting in his fingertip and the warmth that trickled down between the grip and his palm. Now if only he could find his staff. A wizard was nearly powerless without his staff.

A wave lapped against the shore of the lake, and Gandalf pulled himself from his despair and kept moving. If Glamdring made it here, as did he, likely so did his staff. He pondered how deep in the mine he must be, or if he was even in the dwarf tunnels anymore. The sword did not give of even the slightest bit of light, meaning that there was not an orc within miles of him. Khazad-dûm had been thick enough with the pests that the blade had almost been impossible to look at directly. Leave it to orcs to not be near when you would have actually wanted them to be. What he would give for the slightest bit of light.

Water lapped up against his boot, and he muttered a curse as the foul, stagnant water seeped through the worn and beaten leather and soaked into his stocking. And through it all, the darkness never relented. He could almost feel it crawling into him through his eyes, reaching out with fine claws and tendrils like a millipede burrowing into a body.

Water splashed against him again, and he cursed fully. Stepping away from the lake, he tripped over his tattered robe. He wheeled about, trying to find his balance, but the slick, mossy stone below him gave no purchase, and he fell hard, catching himself on his elbow as he made sure to not fall on his own blade. Pain jarred up to his shoulder and lightning spurred across his teeth. A fresh feeling of warmth spilled against his elbow, but Gandalf could not bring himself to care about yet another gash when there were already so many.

He reached out with his mind and grasped for what little power was left to him. The air tingled, and he uttered a single word.

"_Calad!_"

A sickly light filled Glamdring, not the elfin blue of orc-sign, but a faint yellow in the shape of a runic "G" that stretched out the length of the blade. Even for as weak as the light was, it stung his eyes with a feeling like burrs that dug in even under his closed eyelids.

Water lapped up against his boot again, and he swore at the stagnant lake.

Stagnant.

He forced his eyes open to bare slits against the painful light that he had so yearned for and looked over the black, fetid water that had saved him. And there, fire extinguished but still a creature of slime and filth and with the strength of a strangling snake, was the Balrog.

It struggled against the water, sending out waves on what should have been an otherwise still surface, and now it saw Gandalf. Sparks of fire still flickered deep in the beast's eyes, and a hunger of a ravenous wolf lived there. It had found its prey once more, and the scent of blood was heavy in the air. It was no longer a thing about to slink off to tend a wound. Nor was it the undirected and unbridled hatred of a servant of Morgoth. Now, it was a force of revenge. Gandalf had wounded the Balrog, and now, the only way this would end was with one of their deaths.

He stumbled to his feet and looked around for his staff. The feeble light from his blade was small, smaller than it should have been for as painful as it was to his eyes. The darkness had to be pushing back, denying the wizard's power and aiding its vile master that even now was rising from the muck, slime sluicing off its body and pooling about its feet before bubbling to life and crawling back into the creature.

It reached out with one ruined yet clawed hand and swung, and it was all the wizard could do to raise his sword and deflect the blow. The blade bit into the palm of the beast, but it was undeterred. It swung again and again, and each time Gandalf barely turned back the blow. This was no fight, it was merely inevitability. Even gravely wounded and unarmed, the Balrog was a foe beyond Gandalf in his weakened state.

He made a desperate slash, exposing his side to the beast's claws. Searing pain raked his ribs as jagged, slime-covered talons found flesh, but Glamdring struck true, and the beast reeled back with an echoing cry and a fresh, glowing red wound in its chest. As the beast flailed in pain, Gandalf did the only thing he could.

He ran.

He was not sure where he was even running to. Surely the Balrog knew these caves better than the wizard, but he would still live longer in route than standing against the ancient evil.

The light from Glamdring failed as Gandalf's own strength waned, but he had seen a tunnel. Where it led, or if it even led anywhere at all, Gandalf did not know. He did not have the luxury of wondering, though. The Balrog screamed back by the lake and would surely soon be in fevered pursuit, driven by renewed rage from Gandalf's strike.

By some fortune, the tunnel continued and even seemed to gently rise. Perhaps, just perhaps, he could still get out of this. He was without his staff, and barely had the strength to put one foot in front of the other, but it was something.

Behind, the Balrog screamed and followed.

Eight days. Gandalf's wounds burned from infection, and his mind raced with fever and fear. Eight days, and he had never stopped moving. The Balrog had been behind, but sometimes ahead as well. Gandalf still clung to the hope of escape, but a deep despair had fallen over him. Several times the Balrog made it clear that it could have overtaken Gandalf. It was not just trying to kill him. It was herding him, playing with him. Every time Gandalf had seen the beast, it had appeared stronger. No longer was it a slime-covered creature of the deep, but now an abomination of smoldering smoke. It had taken more the form of man now, smaller than it had been but still great in stature and strength. And it had found weapons, or else made them. An open laceration across Gandalf's cheek where the monster's whip had reached him spoke to that.

Now, Gandalf looked around in true despair. He had finally emerged from the caves, and he recognized at last where he was: Silvertine, where the Endless Stair opened into Durin's Tower. Why had the beast driven him here?

He had no time to think, for as he looked about, the Balrog emerged from the stair. It flinched against the sun, but such a creature was above the weaknesses of lesser villains. Instead, as the Balrog stepped fully into the sun, it flexed out two shadows in the form of wings, and burst anew in flame. It was once again whole, and now Gandalf, with nowhere left to run and barely life left in his body, without staff or hope, had to meet it in combat once more.

"Traitor," he called out. "Hound of Morgoth and defiler of the sacred charge given to us by Eru. You think to make an end of this? Do you know who it is you face?"

A sickle of red crossed the Balrog's visage in what must have passed for a smile, and a deep, echoing laugh that shook the mountain itself filled the air.

"I know you," it said. "I know better than all but few others in this wretched land. Olórin you were once called, before you took to disguising your nature, fool of our would-be king Manwë. I know you, brother, but do you know me?"

"Balrog of Morgoth," Gandalf spat. "What more is there to know? A fool who forsook his duty for the hope of cheap glories. Do not think me at my end yet, beast."

The Balrog took a step forward and drew its blade. "You know nothing, Istari. Fool of a Maia who would sacrifice his power to take human form. Tell me, Olórin, have you found the wisdom you sought?"

It was all Gandalf could do to not give ground at the Balrog's advance. "Have you found your glory?"

The Balrog snarled, and Gandalf knew that now was his only chance. He had one last chance, one he dared not use, not with such evil in the world, but he was out of options. He reached into a special pocket he had sown into his robe and muttered the word or release on it. The pocket opened, and as he pulled out his hand, with it came such a light that the Balrog could not help but recoil.

The beast recognized what it faced, but Gandalf needed all the power that would come from admitting the name of his deepest secret.

"Behold, vile wretch! Narya the Great, the Red Ring, the Ring of Fire! See, villain, yourself mirrored and in the greatness you should have had but forsook."

Gandalf slipped the ring onto his hurt finger, letting his blood stain the gold of the band, and new power surged into him. The ring's foremost power was hope, and hope was surely what Gandalf needed. Weariness washed from him, and his wounds seemed to mend in the space of heartbeats. He might not have his staff, but he had Narya, and before him, the Balrog looked with eyes wide.

Wide, but not with fear.

Wide, but not with hate.

Wide with hunger.

The beast stood tall before charging, swinging its great, flaming sword with all its might. Gandalf raised Glamdring and parried, but he was not so fast as to dodge the Balrog's other hand. It did not dart for his throat or his side as he would have expected, but instead for his wrist. There, the clawed hand wrapped firm, and the Balrog pulled Gandalf close enough that the wretched presence of it was near enough to swoon a lesser man.

And then the true assault began. The Balrog reached out, not with talon or whip, but with its mind, and Gandalf felt it touch against his. Truly, did the creature think to face one who was once called wisest of all the Maiar in such a contest? Weakened he may have been, but with the strength of Narya, he would rival one of the Valar themselves. He opened his mind to the assault, and pressed back with all his might.

Blinding pain consumed him, and his cry of pain echoed across the peaks, but it did not echo alone. The Balrog screeched with inhuman fury against Gandalf's assault, and the two of them sang a duet of pain. Searing agony ripped through his body, needles raked across raw flesh and salt and vinegar washed over the wounds. His blood boiled and his muscles convulsed, tensing and aching to the point of tearing asunder. His eyes saw only the Balrog, and the sight was as though being forced to stare into the sun at high noon. His pupils tried to close as tight as they might, but the force of the struggle kept them open as wide as they had been in the cave. There was no denying the visage before him or the pain it brought.

He pressed harder, and the Balrog's mind was laid bare before him. Millennia hiding below the mountains, left there and presumed dead after the War of Wrath. An entire age in servitude to Morgoth, the great betrayer, not just to the Valar, but even to those who followed him. Those Maiar who would one day be called Balrog had followed hoping for a return to the order before the Eldar had come to the land, when the true servants of Eru were exalted above all others and not just the self-important Valar. They had fled with Morgoth before even the war of the Silmarils, hoping to see their better days, and instead, they were twisted by his dark designs, turned from the great beings of light into monsters of fire and shadow, turned from princes to hounds. All except Sauron, the coward, the lieutenant who bowed lower to his new master than ever he did to his old, and then ran when the Valar came to put an end to Morgoth once and for all. The Balrog stayed and fought, and if only the one survived, it was not by any act of cowardice.

The screams grew louder, and Gandalf felt sure for the feeling of it that his skin had been flayed as he stood. Small strips sliced with a ragged knife and slowly pealed with filthy tongs doused in acid. There, across his shoulder, now across his gut. His insides cooked inside him and roiled with disgust. His throat, hoarse from the eternal scream, would have closed in convulsion if he could let it. The muscles fought with each other, but for all he screamed, the Balrog screamed louder.

Before Morgoth, then known as Melkor, had turned his army, back in the days of the trees, the Balrog had been a Maia the same as any other, and a servant to a Vala besides, to Aulë the smith. There, along side Curumo, who would be called Saruman, and alongside the one he named coward, Sauron, he learned the ways of making. He learned the skills that now even the finest of the elf-lords might covet, but compared to Fëanor, he was still nothing. The Eldar, a whelp, was of greater prestige than a Maia, and it burned in the one who would one day be known as Durin's Bane.

And then there was calm, the eye of the storm. Though the combatants' bodies stood motionless atop the mountain, the battle of their minds had come to an end.

"Olórin, you fool," the Balrog said. "You know not what you had. When those children gave you Narya, did they not tell you why they did not wear it? Why the Rings of Power were hidden? They are flawed, subject to the One even though the Coward's hand never touched them. But it was not the One that gave them that flaw, oh wisest of the Maiar. It was the Eldar themselves in their puerile innocence. But who could possibly know of the true nature of this flaw, expect for Aulë's prized students, of which there were three. Two you knew before. Now you know the third."

Gandalf tried to push against the Balrog, but where once there strength, now there was nothing. From the corner of his eyes, still locked on the Balrog, he was faintly aware of Narya, shining bright against shadows that loomed over it. Bright, but not his to control.

"How?"

The Balrog laughed, and its mind grew clearer, stronger. "The flaw is that of control, and the control I have taken is not of your body, but of your name, Olórin. You call me betrayer, but I was the one betrayed. I was an Ainur of Eru, come here to do his work and receive his glory, and yet his great secret, these powerless whelps, were placed above us. Were we not the first, Olórin? Were we not the greatest? And when I followed Melkor to Angbad, all I sought was the proper order. And instead of being lifted up high, I am cast down as a dog by both master and enemy. I may be the last of the Balrog, but I will not share their fate. I will not go to Mandos's hall to be held forever for my crimes."

The contact between their minds broke.

Before Gandalf's eyes, the Balrog diminished. It was now of a height with the old wizard, and the once black and burning body had extinguished. Instead, there was the face of a frail, aged man, with a white snowy beard and weary eyes. It was a familiar face.

Gandalf fell back as the Balrog released him.

It was his face.

His own voice spoke from lips that should have been his own.

"You have seen into my mind, and I into yours, Olórin. No, not Olórin anymore. I take that along with everything else. The Balrog of Morgoth are dead, and the last has been slain by the Istari known as Mithrandir to the Eldar."

Gandalf groaned and became aware of his own body. Smote as he was, it was hard to make out the flickering flames, the smolder of smoke and shadow that barely clung to him.

The creature that wore his face looked down at him pensively. "And it is not just Narya that concerns you, is it? The One is found. Interesting. Very interesting."

It barked a laugh, a sinister and dark thing that had never before been issued in Gandalf's voice, and it pained the old wizard to hear it, but not as much as the thought of what would come to Frodo and the Fellowship.

"Fear not, old man. Your quest is mine now. You think I would help the coward Sauron? Let him fall, I will even help to see his demise. Yes. I will see that this alliance between the two towers is crushed and that the One is destroyed."

Gandalf struggled to rise but could not. "But, why?"

"Because, when this is over, I will be the hero. I shall finally return to the undying lands, not as a prisoner, but as a scion of all that is good. This is the way it was meant to be, Olórin. We were meant to be praised, and I shall be held above all others. That I do it under your name is of no consequence. And, who knows, perhaps with this, there will be higher purposes for me even still."

The Balrog reached down pulled Narya from Gandalf's withered and blackened hand and slipped it into his robes, which he then looked at in disdain.

"Grey. Ever the servant and never the master, weren't you, brother? No longer! Olórin is the wisest of the Maiar, and if Sarumon has forsaken his post, then it falls to me. The White Wizard I shall be from now on. Given new and terrible purpose! Yes. With the power I have taken from you, and the aid of Narya, it is only fitting."

The beast then reached into the snow and picked up Glamdring.

"But a story must be complete, and Mandos will be expecting the soul of a Balrog to be in his halls. I see no reason not to deliver."

The creature rose the sword up high, and Gandalf could only watch as the blade came whistling down, his thoughts empty but for the growing image of steel. There was pain, and then for a final time, darkness consumed him.


End file.
